PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) \u2014 While rookie Yang Hansen prepares for his first NBA season, the Portland Trail Blazers are readying for the onslaught of attention their Chinese big man will bring the team.<\/p>\n
Expectations are high for the 20-year-old who has faced the inevitable comparisons to fellow countryman and former NBA great Yao Ming.<\/p>\n
Blazers coach Chauncey Billups said the 7-foot-1 center will be \u201cright there in the mix\u201d when it comes to Portland\u2019s plans this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Hansen\u2019s done a really good job these last couple months just trying to get situated, trying to understand what we\u2019re doing. He\u2019s definitely going to play,\u201d Billups said.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no denying there\u2019s a certain amount of pressure on the Blazers to showcase Yang, who is a growing sensation back home. Portland\u2019s Summer League games drew millions of viewers on streaming services like Tencent in China. A free broadcast of the summer game between Portland and the Memphis Grizzlies drew a reported 5.2 million viewers on the platform.<\/p>\n
Team President Dewayne Hankins said the Blazers will be looking to capitalize on the connection with new fans. The team is hiring a social media staffer who speaks Mandarin.<\/p>\n
\u201cI remember going to a Summer League practice and talking to one of our staff members who played over in China. And he walked up to me and said, \u2018Are you ready to have 800 million new sets of eyes on your product?\u2019 And I kind of laughed. And then Summer League happened. And for those who got to see it, it was quite the experience,\u201d Hankins said. \u201cWe\u2019re still getting our arms around it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yang, for his part, is busy learning English, getting to know his teammates and just acclimating to the culture. Guard Scoot Henderson joked at Blazers media day on Monday that Yang learned to Nae Nae, but he declined to perform the dance for reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just try to work to make my body faster and be more physical,\u201d Yang said through an interpreter about his progress so far. \u201cAnd try to communicate with my teammates more by English.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yang averaged 16.6 points, 10.5 rebounds and 2.6 blocks last season for the Qingdao Eagles. He has played for the team in China\u2019s top pro league for the past two seasons.<\/p>\n
The Blazers surprised many by gambling on the big man, who was taken with the 16th pick in the NBA draft, but they had been scouting him for two years, impressed with his passing ability and other skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe first thing that stuck out to me was his feel for the game. He just knows how to play. He knows the right paths to make, you know, when he gets the ball in the paint. It\u2019s like he knows how to find a space, to get a quality shot off,\u201d said guard Damian Lillard, who returned to the Trail Blazers in the offseason after two seasons with the Milwaukee Bucks. Lillard is rehabbing a torn Achilles tendon and won\u2019t play this season.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can see he\u2019s very smart, really good passer,\u201d forward Deni Avdija said. \u201cAnd he wants to learn. He wants to be a better player every day.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Blazers will bring Yang along with the big picture in mind, and while that will mean minutes this season, it may also mean stints with Portland\u2019s G League affiliate, the Rip City Remix.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard for a rookie in this league, especially a rookie who comes from international play, who hasn\u2019t played other than four Summer League games for him. He just doesn\u2019t have a lot of quality NBA reps yet,\u201d general manager Joe Cronin said. \u201cSo it\u2019s more to come in, build confidence, do your thing, get better and better, day by day.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yang said he doesn\u2019t feel the weight of expectations because he hasn\u2019t yet achieved anything.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe best thing I can do is focus on my game, just follow my teammates,\u201d he said, \u201cand see what I can do for them and what I can do for the team.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) \u2014 While rookie Yang Hansen prepares for his first NBA season, the Portland Trail Blazers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":179458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82],"class_list":["post-179457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=179457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/179457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/179458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=179457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=179457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=179457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}